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Human-Centered Design: An Rx for Patient Care

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Increasing patient engagement is at the fulcrum of health care transformation. To achieve this critical objective, the industry would do well to borrow a page from disruptors in other consumer industries.

Returning home recently on a wintry day, it occurred to me from the comfort of my Uber ride how powerful truly human-centered technology can be. Not that long ago, I’d have waited in line in the cold to grab a taxi ride home from the airport—an experience I would have endured but not enjoyed. When it comes right down to it, I get to my destination the same way whether I take a taxi or use an app like Uber or Lyft. So why the different experience? Because, like many other app-based services, ride-sharing caters to customers’ needs, not just business needs.

Like Venmo, Washio, and other app-based services, Uber didn’t reinvent the wheel. It simply used existing tools to address customers’ pain points. I can now wait inside, see how far away the car is, and estimate what the cost will be. And, at the end of the ride, I don’t have to deal with the hassle of paying with cash or splitting a fare; rides can be split through the app or I can pay the other passenger.

That’s the essence of human-centered design: engaging consumers by providing them with the value they want.

Unfortunately, visits to doctors’ offices have some catching up to do in meeting consumer needs. There’s typically little upfront transparency into visit wait times or treatment costs. Billing and payment processes are often confusing and frustrating and require negotiation between insurance companies and doctors’ offices. In fact, the patient experience often feels inconvenient and impersonal—despite technology advancements, apps, and engagement initiatives. This is because, more often than not, these services were designed for the organization, not the patient.

What’s in It for Them?

Patient engagement, or encouraging individuals to actively participate in their health and wellness, is central to simultaneously achieving the goals of improving outcomes, reducing costs, and enhancing the experience of care. In today’s value-based world, it’s easy to understand why engagement is top of mind for stakeholders across the health care value chain.

One problem, though, is that people can’t generally agree on what engagement looks like. Many provider organizations treat the tools of engagement—websites, patient portals, and online bill payments, for example—as the solution. Although access to information is an important step, it still has to be relevant and usable for the patient to motivate behavioral changes and improve outcomes.

Take, for example, a new Rock Health study looking at consumer use of mobile health apps that track key health factors like weight, heart rate, or blood pressure. Though 17 percent of the population is currently tracking one or more health factors, only 2 percent track their blood pressure in an app. In another report, analysts found that relatively few people use mobile health apps because they don’t find them useful, the user experience is fragmented, or they can’t overcome privacy concerns. Having the technology isn’t enough; providers need to deliver on consumers’ expectations or risk losing customers and revenue to competitors.

Human-Centered Design

Changing the health care system to better engage customers requires human-centered design, a creative approach to problem-solving and innovation. It aims to better understand the needs of customers by observing how they’re actually interacting with the health system and then developing tools and approaches based on those findings. The goal is to better enable patients to have the experiences they desire as people and consumers, not only as patients—ultimately driving engagement and satisfaction.

It’s important, though, to understand that not all people will respond the same way to engagement efforts. The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions’ 2015 Survey of US Health Care Consumers found that while engagement is trending upward in three important areas—partnering with providers, tapping online resources, and relying on technology—a large segment of the population remains disengaged, suggesting that health care organizations should not use a one-size-fits-all approach in their digital and consumer engagement strategies.

The survey also revealed gaps between what individuals say they’re interested in doing, such as communicating electronically with their doctors, and what they actually do. For human-centered design to be successful, it’s essential to recognize the difference between the two.

Focus groups are one way to try to engage patients in the design process. Yet putting patients, doctors, nurses, and administrators in a room with the design team typically yields minimal insight. It’s easy for patients’ voices to be drowned out and for feedback to mirror what the administration wants to hear.

A better strategy is to select positive, high-energy patient experiences. Take a first-time mother as an example. Engagement may entail tracking her experiences throughout her pregnancy, from understanding her symptoms and emotions to scheduling her OB-GYN visits, sonograms, and procedures, and following her care journey to identify how she genuinely wishes to be engaged. By uncovering what patients demonstrate they want, an organization can test its design hypotheses and outcomes before an organizationwide rollout.

Driving Satisfaction

Layering and personalizing information and assistance to consumers’ different levels of interest, needs, and technical proficiency can help build awareness, comfort, and trust on the path toward a successful and sustainable engagement program.

Health care organizations can learn from app-based services to better listen to customers’ expectations and use existing tools to deliver on their needs. With better information and digital support, they can work toward changing the industry. They’ll not only move the needle on patient engagement, but could also win the hearts, minds, and business of those customers.

Human-Centered Design: An Rx for Patient Care

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